From Falun Gong to Uyghurs: Researchers Shed Light on the Expansion of China’s Forced Organ Harvesting Industry

Maria Cheung, executive director of the Falun Gong Human Rights Group, discusses forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China during the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Montreal on July 1, 2026. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

MONTREAL—The international community’s lack of response to the forced harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners in China has led to the expansion of the practice to encompass Uyghurs, researchers said at a conference this week.

“Although there was a lot of advocacy, the world didn’t respond too much. The response was very, very slow, and so the Chinese communist regime already developed a lot of technology,” said Maria Cheung, executive director of the Falun Gong Human Rights Group and a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba.

“So with the big detention of the Uyghurs later on, we believe that they are also subjected to [forced organ harvesting].”

Cheung was speaking at a panel discussion on forced organ harvesting in China at the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Montreal on July 1.

Other researchers who spoke on the topic include Winnipeg-based international human rights lawyer David Matas, Uyghur Rights Advocacy director Mehmet Tohti, and investigative journalist and author Ethan Gutmann.

China’s practice of harvesting organs from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience first became public in the mid-2000s through the work of Matas and late Canadian parliamentarian and rights advocate David Kilgour.

In the following years, the practice was studied more in-depth, including by the people’s independent China Tribunal held in London, England. The tribunal concluded in 2019 that forced organ harvesting was conducted for years across China on a “significant scale” and that Falun Gong practitioners “have been one - and probably the main - source of organ supply.”

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance that spread rapidly across China in the 1990s due to its health benefits. Fearing its popularity, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a sweeping persecution campaign against the practice in July 1999. Since then, thousands of practitioners have been subjected to surveillance, arbitrary detention, forced labour, brainwashing, torture, and forced organ harvesting.

The China Tribunal found in 2019 that the medical testing of Uyghurs—huge numbers of whom are being held in mass internment camps in the Xinjiang region of China—is more recent and that “evidence of forced organ harvesting of this group may emerge in due course.”

Matas said during his presentation that following the 2006 publication of the report “Bloody Harvest” which he co-authored with Kilgour, the Transplantation Society—an international NGO headquartered in Montreal—adopted some policies to prevent complicity in forced organ harvesting in China, such as preventing Chinese surgeons from attending its events.

This had the effect of putting pressure on Beijing, Matas said, which in 2015 announced it would stop sourcing organs from executed prisoners.

“They said they would stop sourcing organs from executed prisoners, but they never said they would stop sourcing organs from prisoners of conscience,” he said.

Following Beijing’s announcement, the Transplantation Society began re-engaging with China, Matas noted. He made a number of recommendations to address organ transplant abuse in China, including that the Transplantation Society should acknowledge the onus falls on China to prove that sourcing organs from prisoners of conscience has stopped.

The Epoch Times contacted the Transplantation Society for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

Maria Cheung discusses forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China during the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Montreal on July 1, 2026. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

Those researching forced organ harvesting in China have used various approaches to build a picture of the practice amid the almost impossible task of conducting independent research inside China.

Matas and others have noted that China doesn’t have an organ donation culture, so the explosion in the number of transplants conducted after 1999, when the CCP launched its nationwide campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong, cannot be attributed to donations.

Researchers have looked at the expanding number of beds in hospitals where organ transplants are performed and the proliferation of transplant hospitals across China, as well as the extraordinarily short wait times for obtaining a matching organ, said to be as low as two weeks.

There has also been direct evidence collected from hospitals, whose administrators admitted in phone calls to providing organs from Falun Gong practitioners. One survivor who escaped a Chinese prison after having parts of his lung and liver removed came forward in 2024.

Researchers say the Chinese regime views Falun Gong practitioners as a good source for organs because of their healthy habits of not drinking or smoking. In addition, their deaths in prison do not have to be officially accounted for.

Mehmet Tohti discusses forced organ harvesting of Uyhgurs in China during the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Montreal on July 1, 2026. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

DNA Sampling

Tohti said there is a similar theme for the forced organ harvesting targeting the Uyhgur ethnic and religious minority in Western China.

As Muslims, the Uyghurs do not drink alcohol, and Tohti said Chinese hospitals led a large marketing campaign for “halal” transplants in Gulf and Muslim countries after the regime started targeting Uyghurs for organs.

He noted how China organized the mandatory DNA sampling of more than 15 million people in the Uyhgur area of Xinjiang, which he says was done to facilitate the matching of organs.

What followed was the rapid expansion of Chinese transplant hospitals in the region and elsewhere in China, with some catering specifically to Arab patients with halal food and prayer rooms.

“They established fast lanes at the airports from Kashgar, Aksu, Urumqi” to deliver organs quickly, Tohti said.

The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China issued a statement in 2021 condemning the promotion of “halal” organ transplantation in Gulf countries.

Author Ethan Gutmann stands next to a photo of a sign indicating a fast processing lane for organs at the Aksu airport in China, during a panel of the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Montreal on July 1, 2026. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

Pink Bracelets

Gutmann, whose book “The Xinjiang Procedure” was released in March, provided similar information. He has collected testimonies from individuals who’ve been in contact with the forced organ harvesting system in China.

One witness who escaped China told Gutmann she noticed that after blood tests were conducted in one concentration camp, certain prisoners would be wearing pink bracelets before they went missing. The people who disappeared were usually in their late 20s or early 30s.

“That’s exactly the age that the Chinese medical establishment prefers for harvesting, because your organs are fully grown, but have not started to decline,” he said.

Gutmann expressed optimism that a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate recently will go forward to help stem forced organ harvesting in China.

The Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act was introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeff Merkley in March. The bill seeks to impose sanctions on individuals engaged in the practice and prevent their entry on U.S. soil.

Author Ethan Gutmann speaks during a panel of the International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Montreal on July 1, 2026. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

The Canadian Parliament adopted Bill S-223 in 2022 to criminalize involvement in forced organ harvesting and to make permanent residents and foreign nationals inadmissible to Canada if they are deemed to have been involved.

Tohti, however, said the bill “doesn’t have any teeth,” noting an individual could easily be involved without being detected. He said someone seeking an organ transplant can go to China and return without any issues.

“We should have some mechanism to trigger a sort of action for deterrence, and currently we don’t have that,” he said.